Nicolás Maduro was inaugurated as President of Venezuela for a third term on January 10.
Wang Dongming, a vice chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) attended the inauguration as the Special Envoy of Chinese President Xi Jinping. He was among many senior political figures to participate, including the Presidents of Cuba and Nicaragua, the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the former President of Honduras, the Special Envoy of the Russian President, the General Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), and official representatives from Bolivia, Algeria, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Serbia, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada and Saint Lucia among others.
Meeting with Maduro after his inauguration, Wang said that, in September 2023, Xi and Maduro jointly announced the elevation of China-Venezuela relations to an all-weather strategic partnership, leading bilateral relations into a new era. Last year, the two sides solemnly celebrated the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties, and the friendship between the two countries has become more deeply rooted in the hearts of the two peoples.
Maduro asked Wang to convey his highest respect and sincere greetings to Xi and extended his gratitude to him for sending a special envoy to attend the inauguration ceremony of his new term.
Venezuela, he said, attaches great importance to developing the China-Venezuela all-weather strategic partnership and firmly supports China in safeguarding its core interests. Venezuela stands ready to join hands with China to advance practical cooperation in various fields, strengthen the exchange of governance experience, and lift bilateral ties to a new level.
Earlier, on January 7, another Special Envoy of President Xi, Hao Mingjin, also a vice chairperson of the NPC Standing Committee, attended the inauguration of Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama in the capital Accra.
Meeting Mahama after the inauguration, Hao said that China deeply values its traditional friendship with Ghana and remains committed to fostering China-Ghana relations from a strategic and long-term perspective. This year marks the 65th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. China is ready to take this opportunity to enhance communication with Ghana within the frameworks of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), aiming to elevate the China-Ghana strategic partnership to new heights.
An analysis of the significance of Mahama’s electoral victory may be read here.
In Venezuela, the high-level delegations were joined by representatives of progressive and popular movements from around 120 countries. Friends of Socialist China was honoured to send a delegation to Venezuela on this occasion.
We publish below the report and reflections of one of our delegates, Russel Harland, a fulltime trade union official and member of our Britain Committee. The other articles below were originally published by the Xinhua News Agency.
Three other articles by our comrades David Peat and Fiona Sim were published in the Morning Star.
Friends of Socialist China is also among the sponsors of a webinar, ‘Defending the Bolivarian Revolution: Delegates report back from Venezuela’ being organised by the International Manifesto Group (IMG) on Saturday February 1. You can register here.
Xi’s special envoy attends Venezuelan president’s inauguration
CARACAS, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping’s special envoy Wang Dongming attended here the inauguration of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro at the invitation of the Venezuelan government on Friday.
Maduro met with Wang, also vice chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, at the presidential palace after the inauguration.
Wang conveyed cordial greetings and good wishes from Xi to Maduro and congratulated him on his re-election as president of Venezuela.
Wang said that in September 2023, Xi and Maduro jointly announced the elevation of China-Venezuela relations to an all-weather strategic partnership, leading bilateral relations into a new era.
Last year, the two sides solemnly celebrated the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties, and the friendship between the two countries has been more deeply rooted in the hearts of the two peoples, Wang said.
China is willing to work with Venezuela to continue to implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, consolidate and develop the traditional friendship, and push forward bilateral relations for the benefit of the two peoples, Wang said.
Maduro asked Wang to convey his highest respect and sincere greetings to Xi, and extended his gratitude to Xi for sending a special envoy to attend the inauguration ceremony of his new term.
Venezuela attaches great importance to developing China-Venezuela all-weather strategic partnership, and firmly supports China in safeguarding its core interests, Maduro said, adding that Venezuela stands ready to join hands with China to advance practical cooperation in various fields, strengthen the exchange of governance experience, and lift bilateral ties to a new level.
Xi’s special envoy attends inauguration of Ghanaian president
ACCRA, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping’s special envoy Hao Mingjin on Tuesday attended the inauguration of Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama in Accra, the capital of Ghana.
After the inauguration, Mahama met with Hao, vice chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China, on bilateral ties.
During the meeting, Hao conveyed Xi’s warm congratulations and best wishes to Mahama. He said that China deeply values its traditional friendship with Ghana and remains committed to fostering China-Ghana relations from a strategic and long-term perspective.
This year marks the 65th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. China is ready to take this opportunity to enhance communication with Ghana within the frameworks of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, aiming to elevate the China-Ghana strategic partnership to new heights, Hao said.
Mahama asked the Chinese envoy to convey his greetings and respect to Xi and extended his sincere gratitude to the Chinese president for dispatching a special envoy to attend his inauguration. He highly praised the achievements in Ghana-China relations and reaffirmed his government’s commitment to strengthening pragmatic cooperation with China in various fields to further advance bilateral ties.
Friends of Socialist China stand with the Bolivarian Revolution and a multipolar world
It was an immense privilege for my comrade David Peat and I to travel to Venezuela, representing Friends of Socialist China (FoSC) at the January 10 inauguration of President Nicolás Maduro. Here is an anti-imperialist president who opposes genocide and who is fending off the despicable attempts of US imperialism and its followers to destroy the Bolivarian Revolution. FoSC supports the People’s Republic of China and promotes understanding of Chinese socialism, and as part of this, advocates for a new system of international relations based on multipolarity, of which China and Venezuela are both key advocates. An ancient Chinese saying quoted by President Xi Jinping says, ‘a partnership forged with the right approach defies geographical distance; it is thicker than glue and stronger than metal and stone.’ A somewhat more reasonable aspiration to global relations than the ‘end of history’ chaos the world has witnessed these last decades.
While in Caracas we linked up with other British comrades from the Black Liberation Alliance, Morning Star and the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign (VSC), most of whom are also active in FoSC, to participate in this historic event that also included 2000 delegates from 125 countries attending the World International Anti-Fascist Festival on January 9 -11.
President Maduro’s inauguration was not a solemn occasion compared to electoral outcomes in the West, where tightly controlled “democracies,” particularly Britain, decide periodically which party of corporate interests will give the foreboding news to the working class that living standards will continue to decline. On the contrary, this was a portent of a future multipolar world, highlighted not least by the presence of the heads of state of key regional allies Cuba and Nicaragua, presidential envoys from China and Russia, and high-level participation from other anti-imperialist states in the Global South. It was also a vibrant inauguration weekend of dance, music and diversity; a visual portrayal of what Marxist intellectual Marta Harnecker called ‘the art of making the impossible possible’, which inspired Hugo Chávez and which has become a leitmotif of the Bolivarian Revolution. This, despite the material hardships Venezuelans have endured as a result of unjust attacks on their sovereignty by both internal and especially external reactionary forces.
Continuing Chavez’s Socialist Anti-imperialist Struggle
The connecting flight from Madrid to Caracas was crammed with a diverse group of socialists, Marxists and anti-imperialists hailing from Ireland, Britain, Spain and elsewhere. There was a buzz of excitement on the plane. With the threat of right-wing violence a real possibility in Venezuela, it felt like a peace deployment to a live revolutionary situation; ‘a constitutional revolution’ as Chávez referred to how the masses gained power in Venezuela.
Participatory democracy is the cornerstone of the Bolivarian struggle and is enshrined in the country’s constitution. Its respect for the cultural norms, languages, and customs of indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants, has given large swathes of the population, those customarily demobilised in the Global North, a feeling of dignity and control in exercising their full citizenship. Harnecker points to Marx’s comments on social practice which transforms women and men, altering their surrounding environment, in turn, helping them obtain ‘a higher level of human development.’
The nine hour flight was an opportune time to reread a valuable 2023 pamphlet by Dr Francisco Dominguez, the National Secretary of the VSC and a Committee Member of FoSC, documenting how the governing PSUV party and President Maduro have withstood the onslaught from US imperialism these last ten years. Sanctions are a key tool of choice for US imperialism to bring “uncooperative” governments to heel. The depths of depraved cruelty Western governments are willing to inflict on civilians in the Global South is perhaps best evidenced by former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s own words. When told that an estimated half million Iraqi children died due to sanctions in the 1990s, Albright ghoulishly replied that she considered that ‘the price is worth it.’ Incidentally, research carried out in 2019 by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) estimated that US sanctions caused the unnecessary deaths of some 40,000 people alone between 2017 and 2018 due to resulting medical shortages in Venezuela.
Dominguez shows that from 2014 to 2023 Venezuela had been slapped with 927 illegal unilateral sanctions. Many of them targeted primarily Venezuela’s trade but also government officials, public bodies, private companies, and cargo ships as part of a naval blockade by the US. At one point Venezuela lost 99% of its oil revenues. The total estimated loss in this sector as a result of sanctions is US$232 billion. In line with US policy, by recognising Juan Guaidó as ‘interim president’ even though he received no votes and never even stood as a presidential candidate, the British government ordered the Bank of England to withhold 31 tons of Venezuelan gold, thereby confirming Eduardo Galeano’s dictum that after centuries of colonialism, ideological reasons to bleed the new world are never in short supply. Nevertheless, in his research, Dominguez captures the heroic economic recovery that was to see President Maduro’s re-election in July 2024 for a third term.
Recognising A Movement In Motion
Michael Parenti once wrote that to understand capitalism we must first ‘strip away the appearances presented by its ideology.’ Landing in Latin America for the first time, and leaving behind the perverse individualism of the Global North, I found myself entering into a society whose governing power, according to Harnecker, ‘was united around values such as solidarity, humanism, respect for difference and the defence of nature.’
My first glimpse of Caracas, which is surrounded by mountain ranges offering a soothing blanket of greenery around the city, was in the early morning as the bustle of the working day began. Approaching the city the tight security quickly became apparent. The army and police, overwhelmingly non-white, were omnipresent. Mao Zedong once stated that ‘the people are to the army as the water is to the fish.’ Hugo Chávez claimed to live by these words. Security was a key feature of our stay, which included the Policía Nacional Bolivariana escorting our coaches on motorbikes to various engagements. With an army there to serve the interests of the people and not global capital, I felt totally at ease. And this deployment seems to have proved an effective deterrent, since throughout our stay, the whole city and country were in total peace.
The material deprivation is clear to see around Caracas – a consequence of the vast theft of the people’s money that sanctions have entailed. Undoubtedly this money would have been invested in the wellbeing of all Venezuelan citizens given the ‘people first’ ethos of the governing party. That makes the sanctions all the more criminal and the Bolivarian struggle a just and moral pursuit. The collective consciousness I observed in Caracas was similar to what I witnessed last year in China, which no amount of Western ideology can replicate. This offers endless possibilities for future Venezuelan development. The Venezuelan comrades that supported us during our stay were calmly attentive from start to finish without feeling the need to go over the top. The self-assurance was extremely admirable.
Absorbing Chavismo
As we stood in the grounds of the presidential palace, Miraflores, on January 10, opened to the public for the inauguration, a mural of Hugo Chávez shone over the festivities with what felt like a beaming sense of approval. This Afro-Indigenous titan, who turned the elite’s racist contempt into a determination to organise the Bolivarian Revolution, a revolution that embraced the hitherto excluded poor majority, once told Harnecker ‘I am but a man in particular circumstances, and the most beautiful part is that an individual human life is capable of contributing to the growth, the awakening of the collective strength. This is what matters!’
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From the stage adjacent to the palace, President Maduro praised this movement of the great majority for its sacrifice and contribution. As we stood, mingled and danced with the crowd, the Chavistas embraced our solidarity with requests for pictures, hugs and affirmations of future collaboration. This is all part of how Chavismo transcends borders. It is a struggle against the colonial legacy and exclusion. Chavistas are living proof that the working class do not need to descend into rancid bigotry during times of hardship, as many western middle-class liberals would have us believe.
Trump or Multipolarity. There Is No Third Way!
On January 11 the delegates attending the anti-fascist festival made a stirring commitment in the presence of President Maduro – to build the anti-fascist movement worldwide and strengthen our unity in opposing the parasitic forces of US imperialism. Special emphasis was given to supporting the Palestinian people during their unfathomable time of need. Heartrending films of their struggle against genocide were shown, with the producers in attendance.
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As the ceremony drew to a close, President Maduro started naming many of the flags being waved to the jubilation of the crowd. I couldn’t help but think how many of these enthusiastic people had real life experience of having their lives turned upside down by some sort of illegal intervention by US imperialism and its collabotators. What binds Venezuela and China together in these worrying times is not only the National Endowment for Democracy, which has subjected both countries to incessant attempts at destabilisation efforts, but also Marco Rubio. The Florida senator has been appointed Secretary of State by Donald Trump, and has made fanatical statements against both countries in the past.
In the age of the genocide, the choice is clear. Do we stand for multipolarity and ‘the territorial integrity and political independence of any state,’ as set out in the UN Charter? Or do we give free reign to Donald Trump to carry on where the Joe Biden administration left off? There is no third way!
Friends of Socialist China will continue to promote a wider understanding of China and Chinese socialism, whilst also strengthening links with other organisations to promote multipolarity and peace.
References
Dominguez, F. (2023) Maduro: A decade of continuing Chávez’s socialist anti-imperialist struggle. Leicestershire: The General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU).
Galeano, E. (1973) Open Veins Of Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Harnecker, M. (2005) Understanding The Venezuelan Revolution. New York: Monthly Review Press
Harnecker, M. (2007) Rebuilding the Left. London: Zed Books.
Mahbubani, K. (2020) Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy.
Parenti, M. (1997) Blackshirts And Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrown of Communism. San Francisco: City Lights Books.
Xi, Jinping. (2017) The Governance Of China II. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.